Can you feel my quiet? It blankets over the moon. Can you see my quiet? It hovers over your pretty heads. Can you hear my quiet? It drums in my heart. Can you taste my quiet? It bursts in color, but I am still gray. I am flying like a kite through December, and I am flipping the pages of my Literature book, and it is all I can do before I beat my drum harder and faster.
My quiet is the commiserating silence you would hear if you could hear it. It is the silence that reaches an air-conditioned room at precisely 5:30 PM and it is the silence that roams over my eyes when I am still clouded by drowsiness. It is the silence that comes in place of a nightmare's aftermath, and I am stuck swimming and trudging and kneeling, and my hands look for the end of the day too soon. My lips are drawn together and the ceiling is closing in when the alarm penetrates my bad dream, and I immediately gasp at the feeling of irrational depression I feel as I surface to the day. My rib cage is cramming in. My breath—it exudes throughout my limbs. My silence is a book of words, my silence is the crouching you see. I hunch over a book and I eat more silence. I reap it in the corners of the rooms, where the loveliest of books can be found, where the atmosphere and photosynthesis are chapters away. My quiet is an irritating rash reddening on the back of my neck, and I accidentally slap my throat. I grow quieter. I talk and still my lips are drawn close. I blink and see and laugh at somebody, but still I feel hollow and I feel complete.
My clauses cackle deep within. My neck cracks from the tension. The waves horse around my heart—I am an impatient insertion point.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Friday, November 23, 2012
Hectic Sequence
Beams of bright light that shimmer through his coat of red and orange fire up the yellow in his eyes and tingle my vision with a deadly maroon. I am on viscous water, drifting and floating in a stream of reverie and escapism. My ears can hear no other than the whirring of engines in the air. My skull rumbles and I juggle the possibilities in the haste transition of day to night.
Dear brethren, I have been beheaded, but my whole body is still intact? I lose myself in frenzied melancholy and steaming anguish and my dyslexia churns through the ripples of sea water, my mouth wanting tea and cucumber. My gasps hiccup in me and my story might as well end too soon. The wind prowls around my poorly bandaged skeletal frame and I am looping myself through hoops of camera clicks. Click, click, click! I speed down onto my bottom and sink. All I do is blubber... or shush. There's a screw stuck in my windpipe and I choke it out. It stumbles into the moon, and I am left seeing this from underwater, my eyes in salt water and bubbles trying to surface. Huff, huff, I cannot breathe. Hick hick, my inhaler is down here. Somewhere. My hair blocks my vision, and right after my thoughts strangle me. I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe, but I still hear a roar as silent as a meow. I am gone. The haze of Death comes upon me like sleep, like a spell. My memory is befuddled around cat eyes as I soar off...
As I soar closer... and fly helter-skelter and raise my weary arms to touch
the close of a dream. And still, my hands are drawn to hectic streams and lines of your majesty.
Dear brethren, I have been beheaded, but my whole body is still intact? I lose myself in frenzied melancholy and steaming anguish and my dyslexia churns through the ripples of sea water, my mouth wanting tea and cucumber. My gasps hiccup in me and my story might as well end too soon. The wind prowls around my poorly bandaged skeletal frame and I am looping myself through hoops of camera clicks. Click, click, click! I speed down onto my bottom and sink. All I do is blubber... or shush. There's a screw stuck in my windpipe and I choke it out. It stumbles into the moon, and I am left seeing this from underwater, my eyes in salt water and bubbles trying to surface. Huff, huff, I cannot breathe. Hick hick, my inhaler is down here. Somewhere. My hair blocks my vision, and right after my thoughts strangle me. I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe, but I still hear a roar as silent as a meow. I am gone. The haze of Death comes upon me like sleep, like a spell. My memory is befuddled around cat eyes as I soar off...
As I soar closer... and fly helter-skelter and raise my weary arms to touch
the close of a dream. And still, my hands are drawn to hectic streams and lines of your majesty.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Shy Spine Steps
You owed me the hands of the clock and you owed me my breath. You knew the steps of my spine, and you filled the crevices of my lungs. I was hallow so I inhaled deeper, even as my breath fogged up the glass. It was winter when you appeared, one more time from across the world, and your smile and your laugh and the rising of red in your neck was the summer before. I spilt my cup of choco down the drain as your laugh came cascading down my heart, and like a knock on hard mahogany you hacked that part of me and talked away my darkest dreams, whispered them away from my heavy lids. You distracted me from the television show at twilight and in lieu showed me our garden. You hopped down from the sheets and attacked me across the room, tickling my frown away and kissing a bashful smile in sight.
We nailed postcards of your words on my map. And we reinvented the world and dove into stories and memories till midnight took place and your funny snort came punctuating your laugh, and there came my laugh. I almost forgot about it. I gulped at how atrocious it was. Your face was of stone, but it was not stony—it was still and afloat. Your palms were of warmth, but I began to pay more attention to the cold through the allowance we gave the window. Our room was a cavern. I blinked dust off my lashes. You breathed like the lonely streets, but it was not like that because your eyes were twinkling like the vast ocean, keeping aquatic animals of days and nights—just like that summer again. And I liked you first. Then loved you, because you didn't stop me. And now I think you were peculiar. We were clauses and question marks. I hunted for explanations, for deep, more reasonable essays—because you were that, a winning essayist; you became your letters. But what I received was a simmering kiss under the gaze of the watchful moon. I shivered as my fingers scrambled for warmth—they were so skinny and white—so I shut the damn window and relinquished my cowardice, and then you swore it was my courage that you loved most about me. You were brimming with humor. You iced me with words I couldn't take so openly. You garbed me in them, and you shrinked my crevices into stitched patches. Your hands mapped the dark behind my ribs away. You were a hushed tone as I became a rising flush of red. Unfettered you made me as you let me grow wings.
You pulled down my lids at night when they were bright with nightmares. You brought them open the next morning when they were bright with dreams and happiness. Your whispers did well, and your stitches excellent. Your arms were open and your eyes were an experience. I hope I did funny things to your chest too, and I wish your heart still stupidly and superfluously roars when you think of me—like me you.
We nailed postcards of your words on my map. And we reinvented the world and dove into stories and memories till midnight took place and your funny snort came punctuating your laugh, and there came my laugh. I almost forgot about it. I gulped at how atrocious it was. Your face was of stone, but it was not stony—it was still and afloat. Your palms were of warmth, but I began to pay more attention to the cold through the allowance we gave the window. Our room was a cavern. I blinked dust off my lashes. You breathed like the lonely streets, but it was not like that because your eyes were twinkling like the vast ocean, keeping aquatic animals of days and nights—just like that summer again. And I liked you first. Then loved you, because you didn't stop me. And now I think you were peculiar. We were clauses and question marks. I hunted for explanations, for deep, more reasonable essays—because you were that, a winning essayist; you became your letters. But what I received was a simmering kiss under the gaze of the watchful moon. I shivered as my fingers scrambled for warmth—they were so skinny and white—so I shut the damn window and relinquished my cowardice, and then you swore it was my courage that you loved most about me. You were brimming with humor. You iced me with words I couldn't take so openly. You garbed me in them, and you shrinked my crevices into stitched patches. Your hands mapped the dark behind my ribs away. You were a hushed tone as I became a rising flush of red. Unfettered you made me as you let me grow wings.
You pulled down my lids at night when they were bright with nightmares. You brought them open the next morning when they were bright with dreams and happiness. Your whispers did well, and your stitches excellent. Your arms were open and your eyes were an experience. I hope I did funny things to your chest too, and I wish your heart still stupidly and superfluously roars when you think of me—like me you.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
An Overwhelming Visit
Verklempt, she jutted her bony palms into the sockets of her eyes, pushing back in the light and the truth... and what was left of her tears. The sun was right in front of her, and she could feel her short ponytails tickling her neck as she swayed in search of a frescade, and somebody's steady hand lengthened over her shoulder. She felt the tunnels under her toes and the rays of light trying to shush her up, warming up her cold, wet lips. Her blood dripped helter-skelter around her bones and her amber eyes sunk down and down and down... and over the sun and out of space.
She drew the constellations and colored them a clear violet. She was a shy woman, and a queen among her subjects, the Stars. "Lo and behold, she pirouetted with her emerald cloak and vanished," the 12th of October, 2042 smacked the eyes of old grandpa via headline, and he spun around almost too recklessly in his seat and clicked on the television with a nearly violent crack in the air, flicking to the morning news, then coughed with the biggest set of egg-white eyes, "Lenny, you better come hear this!" It was the beginning and the peak of a fairy tale. This was the newest bedtime story throughout the world. Children climbed laps and parents forced up tents, and all adolescents gave up on gossip and game consoles and sneaked out of glass windows. The jobless rode the skies with their eyes and wished all night. They wished every night. Journalists hushed their papers and drew the colors of Miss Verklempt with the most stellar of words, dreaming and downing bottles of champagne, celebrating what was left of the apologies of vainglorious scientists, laughing laughing laughing. "Ha ha ha! They store all their findings, whisper hastily and ostentatiously about them when we're milling about! There isn't anything left to lionize to that extent!" The hidden are unmasked. Evolution among the young ones runs through the streets because of this. What have we been thinking?! Writing?!?! You need to see!
Oh but they still did write. Their personal discoveries were cluttered throughout the corridors, banging against business buildings, and they would still pause other times. She had come swinging between the buildings one more time, and the light promise of her warmth swept the autumn leaves, swept open the windows, and heads poked out as sirens flashed. Eyes were as curious as ever and hearts were pumping greedily. A cry flew in, and there she was again. Her cloak was a pristine white and a crimson red that time and her eyes released a downpour of light and water, and she was so so so beautiful. But she was also so so so pained. Her mouth was open in a shriek of distress. Viridian trails of constellations were written furiously under her fingers. She was a mural forgotten under rambunctious graffiti. And the white lab coats couldn't cognize her reasons. The hopeless grew hopeful and the lions roared once, then twice, then thrice. Every breath was stolen as she ran through the cloudless heaven.
A mother rocked her baby back and forth, oblivious like many were, and her firstborn son who was already ten almost drooped out of his bedroom window, saying, "What a secret. Feel better. Strange lady."
She drew the constellations and colored them a clear violet. She was a shy woman, and a queen among her subjects, the Stars. "Lo and behold, she pirouetted with her emerald cloak and vanished," the 12th of October, 2042 smacked the eyes of old grandpa via headline, and he spun around almost too recklessly in his seat and clicked on the television with a nearly violent crack in the air, flicking to the morning news, then coughed with the biggest set of egg-white eyes, "Lenny, you better come hear this!" It was the beginning and the peak of a fairy tale. This was the newest bedtime story throughout the world. Children climbed laps and parents forced up tents, and all adolescents gave up on gossip and game consoles and sneaked out of glass windows. The jobless rode the skies with their eyes and wished all night. They wished every night. Journalists hushed their papers and drew the colors of Miss Verklempt with the most stellar of words, dreaming and downing bottles of champagne, celebrating what was left of the apologies of vainglorious scientists, laughing laughing laughing. "Ha ha ha! They store all their findings, whisper hastily and ostentatiously about them when we're milling about! There isn't anything left to lionize to that extent!" The hidden are unmasked. Evolution among the young ones runs through the streets because of this. What have we been thinking?! Writing?!?! You need to see!
Oh but they still did write. Their personal discoveries were cluttered throughout the corridors, banging against business buildings, and they would still pause other times. She had come swinging between the buildings one more time, and the light promise of her warmth swept the autumn leaves, swept open the windows, and heads poked out as sirens flashed. Eyes were as curious as ever and hearts were pumping greedily. A cry flew in, and there she was again. Her cloak was a pristine white and a crimson red that time and her eyes released a downpour of light and water, and she was so so so beautiful. But she was also so so so pained. Her mouth was open in a shriek of distress. Viridian trails of constellations were written furiously under her fingers. She was a mural forgotten under rambunctious graffiti. And the white lab coats couldn't cognize her reasons. The hopeless grew hopeful and the lions roared once, then twice, then thrice. Every breath was stolen as she ran through the cloudless heaven.
A mother rocked her baby back and forth, oblivious like many were, and her firstborn son who was already ten almost drooped out of his bedroom window, saying, "What a secret. Feel better. Strange lady."
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Dear Adam
THE MIDSUMMER STATION TOUR. Concert in Tennis Indoor Senayan, Jakarta, Indonesia. Approx. 8.00 PM. This was on November 14th, 2012.
This is my reaction, or review, or letter. To Owl City. On here.
Dear Adam,
I don't understand. I cannot begin to fathom why it bleeds with rich abundance, why it hurts so much. I can't look for clues. I can't unveil the definite, the rational answer to my imploration, to my emotional dilemma—why I feel so strangely alone. I am left lonely and forlorn and I don't understand why because there are many, so many people, and yet my body controls me and isolates me in my frigid and murky mind. And even as I had waited out to meet you—to ACTUALLY meet you—I was smothered with the worst of thoughts and the greatest of absurd and stupid dilemmas that didn't seem so much like that in the eye of a bystander. I did not deserve to see you and I was not destined to hear you but I had been ushered in, and all I became was a blubbering mess. Twice a camera clicked as I helplessly stained my cheeks with more tears. You reduced me to noisy mewls and whimpers I besought to silence. You were the reason why, too. Because. BECAUSE, for long you had been my savior. And I thank GOD for you.
I am stuck in the noise and the hallucinations and the temptations, and you give me hope, and blinding lights... and tears I easily taste on my lips. I couldn't see you well through my hands and my tears but you were there, and you were of enormous height and you were glowing with brilliant effervescence. I heard people gasp and my sobs worsened. I do not know why I am like this when everyone else is not. You had rained on me and nurtured me. Your music has done this to me. You grew me into something else again; I can feel it as light as a feather but also as heavy as the world. I can feel you. And GOD; if that is Him. My feet ached SO MUCH and I begged them not to, but I felt the necessity to jump for you and for everyone, along with the crowd, alongside the beautiful sound.
Yes, I had dreamt with eyes open that you were effervescent. You were glowing with the atmosphere of an angel, and it feels too surreal and I cry because I feel silly and rude and I somewhat hugged you or you somewhat hugged me.
You wore blue and white stripes. You wore—oh—a handsome face that even brought my mother gasping. You wore the orange, the purple, the red, the white, the blue, the green lights. You wore wings. You wore faith. You wore the air we gulped down. You quenched me with ecstasy. AND I still haven't resolved how you could pull apart the glued pieces of a haywire heart and stitch them back together with elite but humble words and glimpses, doing it all over again in that exact series of brusque but tiresome events.
For many moments I let my head hang and my eyes click shut, just for a moment, so I could bask in the moment while you, Breanne, Daniel, Steve, and Jasper gave me dreams and disasters. I have more and more to write, to you, but I've been silenced with awe and worry I still need to get rid of. Thank you. Singing and dancing in sync with you from the middle of the audience was love, war, and pure insanity. I'll try not to forget.
It leads to this. God bless you, Mr. Adam Young.
With gratitude and admiration,
Amber
This is my reaction, or review, or letter. To Owl City. On here.
Dear Adam,
I don't understand. I cannot begin to fathom why it bleeds with rich abundance, why it hurts so much. I can't look for clues. I can't unveil the definite, the rational answer to my imploration, to my emotional dilemma—why I feel so strangely alone. I am left lonely and forlorn and I don't understand why because there are many, so many people, and yet my body controls me and isolates me in my frigid and murky mind. And even as I had waited out to meet you—to ACTUALLY meet you—I was smothered with the worst of thoughts and the greatest of absurd and stupid dilemmas that didn't seem so much like that in the eye of a bystander. I did not deserve to see you and I was not destined to hear you but I had been ushered in, and all I became was a blubbering mess. Twice a camera clicked as I helplessly stained my cheeks with more tears. You reduced me to noisy mewls and whimpers I besought to silence. You were the reason why, too. Because. BECAUSE, for long you had been my savior. And I thank GOD for you.
I am stuck in the noise and the hallucinations and the temptations, and you give me hope, and blinding lights... and tears I easily taste on my lips. I couldn't see you well through my hands and my tears but you were there, and you were of enormous height and you were glowing with brilliant effervescence. I heard people gasp and my sobs worsened. I do not know why I am like this when everyone else is not. You had rained on me and nurtured me. Your music has done this to me. You grew me into something else again; I can feel it as light as a feather but also as heavy as the world. I can feel you. And GOD; if that is Him. My feet ached SO MUCH and I begged them not to, but I felt the necessity to jump for you and for everyone, along with the crowd, alongside the beautiful sound.
Yes, I had dreamt with eyes open that you were effervescent. You were glowing with the atmosphere of an angel, and it feels too surreal and I cry because I feel silly and rude and I somewhat hugged you or you somewhat hugged me.
You wore blue and white stripes. You wore—oh—a handsome face that even brought my mother gasping. You wore the orange, the purple, the red, the white, the blue, the green lights. You wore wings. You wore faith. You wore the air we gulped down. You quenched me with ecstasy. AND I still haven't resolved how you could pull apart the glued pieces of a haywire heart and stitch them back together with elite but humble words and glimpses, doing it all over again in that exact series of brusque but tiresome events.
For many moments I let my head hang and my eyes click shut, just for a moment, so I could bask in the moment while you, Breanne, Daniel, Steve, and Jasper gave me dreams and disasters. I have more and more to write, to you, but I've been silenced with awe and worry I still need to get rid of. Thank you. Singing and dancing in sync with you from the middle of the audience was love, war, and pure insanity. I'll try not to forget.
It leads to this. God bless you, Mr. Adam Young.
With gratitude and admiration,
Amber
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Pacific Before Tiger
For the past few days I have been reading my way through LIFE OF PI by Yann Martel. I am only more than halfway through by now as Pi continues to lather my eyes with an astonishing view through the lens of his memories. I am grateful, for this book has been a poignant escape for me even in just a few days.
It has been developed into a film. I am not eager to dive into spoilers, but I've scrolled through a miniature line of comments across the Internet and these opinions and small talks have been spoiler-free and reassuring. I hope Ang Lee excites readers and non-readers enough to make us gasp (and maybe laugh) collectively in the theatre, but for now I'm giving him the side eye.
I promise that I was just perusing through the National Bookstore branch in SM Marikina till I found a book deemed interesting enough by their summary. Then came fate when I hit the teenage fiction area further into the bookstore and tickled the book's spine before tipping it toward my curious hands and eyes. I honestly did not know its film would be out around November... or December, but, yes, a gold stamp informed me of that exactly. And now I am stuck in Pi's whirlwind of an experience, and I've never felt this funny inside since THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak. I wasn't expecting so much vividity and sympathy and humor for one wise believer who, in the arousal of emotional intensity in his entire life, was only a sixteen-year-old. Martel gives us tastes of sensitivity and wonderment throughout Pi's challenges. Pi's thoughts—from worrisome to sunny bright—knock the breath out of my lungs, and wow that sounds so cliche but it is one of the crumbles of compliments I can poorly give.
Yann Martel is dazzling. His chapters leave you hungry for more and his words flow sweet with abundance. He offers a keen demonstration of the way of animals and gives Pi his own opinions and weaknesses that turn out to be strengths. Pi's relationship with God also doesn't forget to shine. What an awesome connection to behold.
Oh boy, I have some more reading to do. (But I've already went through this image via text.)
ETA: lifeofpimovie.com
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Italicized Love
Just let me twist your arms, your legs, and dissect the ensemble in you. Let me rummage through your bones, and unscrew all your joints, and tickle your mouth, and finally feel your heart. But don't push your heart into my hand. Let me inspect it first, let me play with your keys, let me joke with your peeves. I can unceremoniously discard you from the spaces between my fingers, but I won't. Let me bend your knees and your elbows, let me see through your contact lenses, let me breathe through you. Leave me in your library. Leave me in your lexicon. Leave me in the depth of your consonants and vowels. I'll drum my fingers on your freckles and tickle your spine without you knowing it. You're funny.
But, darling, as I backspace through my nonsensical jargon, don't let go of me. You'll be my beacon for some time. You'll be my safeword through the coughs and headaches. Be my anchor—make sure I don't always lose myself in these crosswords. Magnify my movements, italicize my locomotion, lazily drawl your analysis of me as we daydream in camouflaged pillow forts, but don't treat me like a pet. Play me whimsical music in the silence. Don't let me dangle alone from my noose. Join me in my frescades, but not always. Look through my telescope when I ask you to, and I definitely will. Be my poet and be my daily news. Give me permission to tattoo litanies and fairytales on your milky ribcage, and under your wrist, and somewhere on your ear. Be my duet partner, and come rushing with me through the forest. Pen me with undivided attention and undiluted love. Don't argue that I'm impassioned about this—don't take it away from me, and don't abuse your freedom. But—and there is always a but—feel free to clamor with me. Opine about my lifestyle, my wardrobe, or the way I laugh. Frustrate me, frustrate yourself. Be human. I won't hold you back if you be you.
But, darling, as I backspace through my nonsensical jargon, don't let go of me. You'll be my beacon for some time. You'll be my safeword through the coughs and headaches. Be my anchor—make sure I don't always lose myself in these crosswords. Magnify my movements, italicize my locomotion, lazily drawl your analysis of me as we daydream in camouflaged pillow forts, but don't treat me like a pet. Play me whimsical music in the silence. Don't let me dangle alone from my noose. Join me in my frescades, but not always. Look through my telescope when I ask you to, and I definitely will. Be my poet and be my daily news. Give me permission to tattoo litanies and fairytales on your milky ribcage, and under your wrist, and somewhere on your ear. Be my duet partner, and come rushing with me through the forest. Pen me with undivided attention and undiluted love. Don't argue that I'm impassioned about this—don't take it away from me, and don't abuse your freedom. But—and there is always a but—feel free to clamor with me. Opine about my lifestyle, my wardrobe, or the way I laugh. Frustrate me, frustrate yourself. Be human. I won't hold you back if you be you.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
You and Your Six-Shooter
So he's been absent for a while.
His movements are cool, but his shoulders are set high and his eyes—those unreadable hazel eyes—are unusually bloodshot. He casually scans the room, then hunches down to forge something from his beat-up backpack. Sitting on his head are dark curls vamoosing away from his plastic headphones. Right now, it is lunch. I am four tables away from his lonely one.
I don't think he sees me looking.
But I may not be looking so closely, really. Because when he pushes his chair back and it creaks harshly—and nobody still takes note of him—he apprehends everyone. Everybody in the cafeteria doesn't observe back, and in that second he begins to carry himself up with his arm still deep in his bag he looks in my direction. This is the first time I look at him in the eye, and when I do his eyes are brimming with tears, and something clicks. He tears the moment away; I am bewildered. He stands up, drops whatever he was holding back into the abyss of his backpack, zips it close, and walks to the exit as he turns his head away.
Something churns uneasily in my stomach as he strides out of my vision and out into the hallway. I heft crumbs of my lunch into my mouth and stand to throw plastic into the nearest bin. As I deposit my tray, I can't help but think of what he was reaching down for. Probably just a book, or money. But he seemed so hesitant... and angry.
So I march to the restroom to make myself more presentable for the next class—thoughts still running through me like a sickness—when there's a scream.
A scream.
It reverberates through the room—a majority of us either sits or stands still, and one scream multiplies into half a dozen. Then I think everyone can hear them now. The bloody screams flood our ears like urgent knocks against expensive wood. They rain down and through the air in a staccato beat. I am trembling in fear before I know it.
Then the first shot rings in our ears so vividly, disrupting the ice among our stances. In a syrupy second my heart thumps dangerously in my ears. I see people panic.
Another bullet cuts the air, cuts through somebody's body. Somebody's life.
I run. Jesus Christ, I run.
I dash to the door with everyone. It leads to the trellis. The guard isn't by the gate but an alarm is on. People hurry into the laboratories, the library—anywhere—while I fumble for my phone somewhere in my satchel. Just then my phone vibrates in my hand, kind of matching my distress. I take the call in the art room, falling under the teacher's table on impulse where I hear nothing but my serrated breath and the door sliding shut, just like my eyes.
"Hello?" I answer the call.
"Mel? Mel? Where are you?!" It's my friend, Krista, whose voice screams fear. I understand.
"Krista, I'm under a table. Art room. Where are you? And what the hell is happening?!" But I think I already know. And I think I already know who.
But why?
"Frigging boys restroom." A delirious laugh. A breathy pause. Stay calm, Krista. Keep it. "I'm with Reese and his friends. I think Jill is here, too. There's a psycho on the loose, Mel, and we're presuming this psycho's a friggin' student." My breath hitches. No. I begin to say something but she cuts me. "Now listen, Mel, I—"
And she's gone. Too fast.
I don't want to listen to her screams. Or Reese's. Or Jill's. So I turn my cell phone off although I could just dismiss the call, and I imagine how she must have looked like in the restroom along with her boyfriend—who I know must have been holding her tight—and Jill, who just wanted to get out of high school like most of us do. Then the image fades. I rub my palms on my jeans and dig for my inhaler.
Then I realize I should have locked the door, and now I'm in the middle of muffling a colossal cry. The art room is seriously stuffy. It's located by the garden, and there aren't much trees to obscure the view from the window. I remember how the garden looks like as I shut my eyelids close. Its beauty sits there peacefully as the student population dwindles in a massacre. The world for now is a terrible furnace, an oven, and the witch is looking for some kids to eat. To destroy. I try to recite a silent prayer, but I stumble clumsily on my own words. I've heard some pastor once say that your vocabulary doesn't matter while or when praying, but my tongue is dry, and my beliefs are in a heap of ash. I may be dizzy, and I freeze once again.
People scream by.
People come in.
Hide, hide, hide, I think. Jesus, people, hide.
We all hide. We are all one breath.
Our predator still arrives, of course. It's inevitable by now. And all I can think before I die is, Why, Robert?
Why?
His movements are cool, but his shoulders are set high and his eyes—those unreadable hazel eyes—are unusually bloodshot. He casually scans the room, then hunches down to forge something from his beat-up backpack. Sitting on his head are dark curls vamoosing away from his plastic headphones. Right now, it is lunch. I am four tables away from his lonely one.
I don't think he sees me looking.
But I may not be looking so closely, really. Because when he pushes his chair back and it creaks harshly—and nobody still takes note of him—he apprehends everyone. Everybody in the cafeteria doesn't observe back, and in that second he begins to carry himself up with his arm still deep in his bag he looks in my direction. This is the first time I look at him in the eye, and when I do his eyes are brimming with tears, and something clicks. He tears the moment away; I am bewildered. He stands up, drops whatever he was holding back into the abyss of his backpack, zips it close, and walks to the exit as he turns his head away.
Something churns uneasily in my stomach as he strides out of my vision and out into the hallway. I heft crumbs of my lunch into my mouth and stand to throw plastic into the nearest bin. As I deposit my tray, I can't help but think of what he was reaching down for. Probably just a book, or money. But he seemed so hesitant... and angry.
So I march to the restroom to make myself more presentable for the next class—thoughts still running through me like a sickness—when there's a scream.
A scream.
It reverberates through the room—a majority of us either sits or stands still, and one scream multiplies into half a dozen. Then I think everyone can hear them now. The bloody screams flood our ears like urgent knocks against expensive wood. They rain down and through the air in a staccato beat. I am trembling in fear before I know it.
Then the first shot rings in our ears so vividly, disrupting the ice among our stances. In a syrupy second my heart thumps dangerously in my ears. I see people panic.
Another bullet cuts the air, cuts through somebody's body. Somebody's life.
I run. Jesus Christ, I run.
I dash to the door with everyone. It leads to the trellis. The guard isn't by the gate but an alarm is on. People hurry into the laboratories, the library—anywhere—while I fumble for my phone somewhere in my satchel. Just then my phone vibrates in my hand, kind of matching my distress. I take the call in the art room, falling under the teacher's table on impulse where I hear nothing but my serrated breath and the door sliding shut, just like my eyes.
"Hello?" I answer the call.
"Mel? Mel? Where are you?!" It's my friend, Krista, whose voice screams fear. I understand.
"Krista, I'm under a table. Art room. Where are you? And what the hell is happening?!" But I think I already know. And I think I already know who.
But why?
"Frigging boys restroom." A delirious laugh. A breathy pause. Stay calm, Krista. Keep it. "I'm with Reese and his friends. I think Jill is here, too. There's a psycho on the loose, Mel, and we're presuming this psycho's a friggin' student." My breath hitches. No. I begin to say something but she cuts me. "Now listen, Mel, I—"
And she's gone. Too fast.
I don't want to listen to her screams. Or Reese's. Or Jill's. So I turn my cell phone off although I could just dismiss the call, and I imagine how she must have looked like in the restroom along with her boyfriend—who I know must have been holding her tight—and Jill, who just wanted to get out of high school like most of us do. Then the image fades. I rub my palms on my jeans and dig for my inhaler.
Then I realize I should have locked the door, and now I'm in the middle of muffling a colossal cry. The art room is seriously stuffy. It's located by the garden, and there aren't much trees to obscure the view from the window. I remember how the garden looks like as I shut my eyelids close. Its beauty sits there peacefully as the student population dwindles in a massacre. The world for now is a terrible furnace, an oven, and the witch is looking for some kids to eat. To destroy. I try to recite a silent prayer, but I stumble clumsily on my own words. I've heard some pastor once say that your vocabulary doesn't matter while or when praying, but my tongue is dry, and my beliefs are in a heap of ash. I may be dizzy, and I freeze once again.
People scream by.
People come in.
Hide, hide, hide, I think. Jesus, people, hide.
We all hide. We are all one breath.
Our predator still arrives, of course. It's inevitable by now. And all I can think before I die is, Why, Robert?
Why?
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Your Science
So I'm going to be violent.
I dip your framework into white paint, and I dangle by your side, my nose almost dipping with you. The walls tremble, and the can of paint sways with my profanities as I stammer to call, "STOP!" You're almost there, because I hear you singing. I stand back and watch you shoot through and spin around, downing all the paint like you said you would, and soon you will be ivory. We are ivory, now. I clamber up the blotches of black, and I actually feel your reaction in me. My pulse tickles my ears, and your eyes trek through mine, and I feel like dynamite, and I feel pretty. Your tongue is a lexicon as you whisper the world to me. You plead me to come to life, and I do — I've wailed through the process, and now you're my bones and my flesh and my blood, zipping and zapping through everything in my system, in my systems. You drive my mitochondria, my cells, you are my neuron, and I bury my words underneath butterfly kisses. I am light and happy, true and quixotic, fond of your science. I trample down the stairs and find my hastily discarded words. I dance myself through and in them. You strip me of them, and I am still whole afterwards.
So here's a short description. Of you. Your eyes are illuminated with warmth, and I can't hear ANYTHING — it must be twelve, where is my clock? You are my alarm. Your lips are rushing with blood and keeping down words, but don't shorten your dictionary! I am in awe of how your lower lip is cherry, and how it can keep all... those... words... Your words are foolish and young, but I am trapped on my own consent. Your palms... your hands are gauche. You know how thin-skinned I am, regardless of what that means to you. Your hands are my phantoms. They ghost over me, and I am almost overpowered by your presence, but your palms are gentle when they land. They land to soothe me, to erase the tears, to accompany my hands which, no, you do not ignore. I like holding hands. I like holding your hands.
I dip your framework into white paint, and I dangle by your side, my nose almost dipping with you. The walls tremble, and the can of paint sways with my profanities as I stammer to call, "STOP!" You're almost there, because I hear you singing. I stand back and watch you shoot through and spin around, downing all the paint like you said you would, and soon you will be ivory. We are ivory, now. I clamber up the blotches of black, and I actually feel your reaction in me. My pulse tickles my ears, and your eyes trek through mine, and I feel like dynamite, and I feel pretty. Your tongue is a lexicon as you whisper the world to me. You plead me to come to life, and I do — I've wailed through the process, and now you're my bones and my flesh and my blood, zipping and zapping through everything in my system, in my systems. You drive my mitochondria, my cells, you are my neuron, and I bury my words underneath butterfly kisses. I am light and happy, true and quixotic, fond of your science. I trample down the stairs and find my hastily discarded words. I dance myself through and in them. You strip me of them, and I am still whole afterwards.
So here's a short description. Of you. Your eyes are illuminated with warmth, and I can't hear ANYTHING — it must be twelve, where is my clock? You are my alarm. Your lips are rushing with blood and keeping down words, but don't shorten your dictionary! I am in awe of how your lower lip is cherry, and how it can keep all... those... words... Your words are foolish and young, but I am trapped on my own consent. Your palms... your hands are gauche. You know how thin-skinned I am, regardless of what that means to you. Your hands are my phantoms. They ghost over me, and I am almost overpowered by your presence, but your palms are gentle when they land. They land to soothe me, to erase the tears, to accompany my hands which, no, you do not ignore. I like holding hands. I like holding your hands.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Prayer
It was the bothering humidity that had tried to push her eyelids down, but she couldn't feel them lock into place as the day shot down into night, and the moon was alive and the humidity, yes, still was too. She laid her heels down next to her pale feet, and her hair dangled sadly around her face and down her shoulders. The wind blew through the windows and the entrance, the tree giving her music as its leaves rustled in her ears. Her makeup was a mess, she knew, with all the tears and rain. But she will never know how she had always triumphed an ugliness people anticipated to see, because when she dashed away and sobbed and felt utterly and devastatingly alone she was still pretty. No, not pretty, but beautiful. Never... plain. Her gown bled raindrops, and as she gasped for air she tore off a part, and another part, of her infamous gown.
Her lower lip quivered as a breakdown hummed around. Her breaths were commas, and they were ragged ones. Trying to collect herself, the leaves rustled on some more, and she relinquished almost half of her meticulously prepared attire for comfort. Her canvas has been brushed with violent colors, and she couldn't shield it. She couldn't improvise a cover. So she ran. To his—their?—tree house. She had spun around streets and found it in the midst of an unpleasant drizzle accumulating to rain—a whimper accumulating to a wail—and nimbly but carefully rose up the familiar ladder after shooting her worn out heels through the entrance and into the blank half-time abode of a dearly missed face. She had breathed the strong panels of wood around her, hoping the joy of a hundred memories would come tend to her, and yet—she almost expected this—all she felt was nostalgia as the boastful rain tumbled down from the clouds. And she wished all the melancholy she knew would vanish down all the gutters throughout the street.
The rain came on some more for quite some time. She tucked her knees under her chin, and although the heat felt almost lost and unusual beside the rain's gloom, it felt golden. The world felt golden, and she wiggled her toes as it tickled the wooden floor. This was the dance floor she knew. And hey, it had no disco ball, no Top Forty either, but it was home—it was the sight of droopy trees and the soundtrack of her thoughts. She had abandoned it. He had then later abandoned it, too. But she had sped back to each and every moment spent in the funny, sticky heat and humidity of this treehouse. She wasn't weak, but she was troubled, and she missed out on everything too damn soon. She missed this, missed him, and just sitting down inside felt like a dream and a wish. Wiping her face with clean cloth, she scooted closer to a window and drank the tears of the evening sky, praying—oh, so, praying—for freedom. And a chance. A chance for what? For the space around her to stay there, and strength—dear God, strength—to know better. And she felt like she did... But then she wanted all the acid off her tongue. Please.
A mutter. A whisper. A half-broken cry. Then a silhouette crushing down into a fetus, and breathing, then sleeping. But not forever, not yet.
"Amen."
Amen.
Her lower lip quivered as a breakdown hummed around. Her breaths were commas, and they were ragged ones. Trying to collect herself, the leaves rustled on some more, and she relinquished almost half of her meticulously prepared attire for comfort. Her canvas has been brushed with violent colors, and she couldn't shield it. She couldn't improvise a cover. So she ran. To his—their?—tree house. She had spun around streets and found it in the midst of an unpleasant drizzle accumulating to rain—a whimper accumulating to a wail—and nimbly but carefully rose up the familiar ladder after shooting her worn out heels through the entrance and into the blank half-time abode of a dearly missed face. She had breathed the strong panels of wood around her, hoping the joy of a hundred memories would come tend to her, and yet—she almost expected this—all she felt was nostalgia as the boastful rain tumbled down from the clouds. And she wished all the melancholy she knew would vanish down all the gutters throughout the street.
The rain came on some more for quite some time. She tucked her knees under her chin, and although the heat felt almost lost and unusual beside the rain's gloom, it felt golden. The world felt golden, and she wiggled her toes as it tickled the wooden floor. This was the dance floor she knew. And hey, it had no disco ball, no Top Forty either, but it was home—it was the sight of droopy trees and the soundtrack of her thoughts. She had abandoned it. He had then later abandoned it, too. But she had sped back to each and every moment spent in the funny, sticky heat and humidity of this treehouse. She wasn't weak, but she was troubled, and she missed out on everything too damn soon. She missed this, missed him, and just sitting down inside felt like a dream and a wish. Wiping her face with clean cloth, she scooted closer to a window and drank the tears of the evening sky, praying—oh, so, praying—for freedom. And a chance. A chance for what? For the space around her to stay there, and strength—dear God, strength—to know better. And she felt like she did... But then she wanted all the acid off her tongue. Please.
A mutter. A whisper. A half-broken cry. Then a silhouette crushing down into a fetus, and breathing, then sleeping. But not forever, not yet.
"Amen."
Amen.
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